Why WOM kicks viral’s ass

By Molly Flatt

OK, so maybe I was in a rather combative mood this week when I was asked to be one of the presenters at travel industry group CIMTIG‘s debate ‘Viral Marketing: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’.

© Adam Huntley – see the full photo gallery

In a thankfully well-soundproofed room in the Dominion Theatre, under the skilled moderation of well-known social media man-about-town Kevin May of Tnooz,  Elliot Pritchard of P&O Cruises kicked off by discussing the company’s learnings from venturing into the viral space, with some successes but also some scepticism about the measurements and lasting effects. Daniel Kennedy then presented SKV Communications’ award-winning J’Aime La Tour viral for Blackpool, and Stu Howarth explained how KoKo Digital produce their viral games.

I was particularly impressed with Daniel, who admitted J’Aime La Tour was less effective as a massive-clicks viral success but fantastic as a WOM trigger – something that unsurprisingly pushed my buttons.

However, I admit that my own presentation, ‘Why WOM kick’s viral’s ass’, took a rather different view from the other panellists. There were lots of stats thrown around in the session around traffic, click-throughs and reach, and I wanted to bring some perspective to the datafest. What on earth do the numbers mean? Are they any indication of an emotional reaction, an increase in advocacy or a potential customer?

By highlighting that a biological virus’s purpose is basically to replicate itself, I suggested that true spreadability comes from people being inspired to create opinionated content themselves, rather than just reproducing yours. I used the case studies of our work for STA Travel and Tourism New South Wales to suggest a different way.

Anyway, you can read about it fully in this rather nice write-up in Contagious and have a look at the deck below.

Why WOM kicks viral’s assView more presentations from 1000heads .

So: what’s your opinion on viral vs WOM?

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Brought into the world on Thursday, April 29th, 2010 and filed under 1000thoughts, Events.

  • http://twitter.com/Sam_Ford Sam Ford

    Hi Molly…I enjoyed your slide deck and hearing about the discussion and the presentation. I was especially glad to see Faris Yakob included/quoted in your presentation…A key distinction, I think, is that thinking of advertising/marketing content as spreadable media or material that is fodder for the audience you're looking to reach puts emphasis on listening and the wants and needs of the audience, whereas viral puts the focus on the company's content and goals and infecting people rather than listening to, dialoguing with and truly understanding them. In the end, it matters less the exact language we use but rather how that language is framing the work we do and the logic behind that work. Really appreciate the thoughts on the topic as Henry Jenkins, Joshua Green and I work on a book on “spreadable media/spreadability” as a concept.

  • mollyflatt

    Thanks Sam. I admit I was partly using Yakob's quote to demonstrate that viral is an abused buzzword – I think I kind of like what he says, and think it somehow seems good – but to be honest it still doesn't clarify the issue for me one bit. We love to coin clever sentences but do they actually help any of us move forwards?

    If you look at any real definition of viral, coming from biology, it comes down to self-perpetuation. That, to me, smacks of broadcast, not true, evolving “spreadability.”

    I'll seek out your book!

  • http://twitter.com/Sam_Ford Sam Ford

    Good question regarding clever sentences. I think they do help us move forward inasmuch as they get our attention and cause us to start asking questions. Most bad ideas or outdated metaphors continue in circulation long past their usefulness because no one has sparked us to question the thinking. Our brain just goes on auto-pilot and we repeat them verbatim. But your latter point has been the focus of our research through the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium and the focus of this “spreadable media” book that we're working on. I think the idea that brands or big media companies can still send a message out there that people will have no choice but to pass along and that will ultimately generate many passive impressions is just another way to try and perpetuate a broadcast media mentality in a new space…but culture doesn't act like biology, so we have to think about the fact that the way messages spread have more to do with the conversations audiences are having than it does a brand's content or a media company's content…